The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in the present disclosure and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
In some versions of long term evolution (LTE) networks such as those defined by release 12 of the third generation partnership project (3GPP) specifications, a time division duplex (TDD) uplink/downlink (UL/DL) configuration may change between two consecutive radio frames. Specifically, a first TDD UL/DL configuration may be used for a first radio frame and a second TDD UL/DL configuration may be used for a second radio frame. This changing TDD UL/DL configuration may be referred to as a dynamic TDD UL/DL reconfiguration.
In some cases, the use of different TDD UL/DL configurations in consecutive radio frames may decrease throughput of the eNodeB (eNB) and/or user equipment (UE) of the radio cell. Specifically, the change in TDD UL/DL configurations may extend the length of time it takes to complete a Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) process in the cell, which may result in a transmission of less data within the radio cell. Additionally, in some cases it may be problematic for a UE to identify the change in TDD UL/DL configurations in the cell.